Open Data Platform Hits Milestone

The Open Data Platform (ODP) -- formed a couple months ago to advance Hadoop-based Big Data technologies for the enterprise -- has achieved its stated goal to develop a standard "ODP Core" upon which to base projects.

Consortium members Hortonworks Inc., IBM Corp. and Pivotal Software Inc. yesterday said their respective Big Data products are now aligned on this core, comprising version 2.6 of the open source Apache Hadoop software. Included with Apache Hadoop 2.6 in this core are individual components such as Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS), MapReduce, YARN (often described as an improvement upon MapReduce) and the Apache Ambari management tool.

The ODP was formed by 15 industry organizations "to promote open source-based Big Data technologies and standards for enterprises building data-driven applications."

Along with the three aforementioned companies, other founding members include industry leaders such as GE, Infosys Ltd., SAS, EMC Corp. and VMware Inc.

Pivotal, which announced a big change in direction to open source much of its technology when the consortium was introduced, has been instrumental in leading the effort. "Born from the playbook Pivotal used just a year ago to leverage open source and open collaboration to accelerate Cloud Foundry into becoming the biggest open source success in recent years, ODP promises to do the same for the Apache Hadoop ecosystem and Big Data, and do it quickly," the company said in a blog post.

Yesterday, Pivotal exec Leo Spiegel expounded on the ODP vision.

"To move forward, Pivotal believes that the Big Data market requires a standard, predictable and mature Hadoop-based core platform for modern management solutions," Spiegel said in a statement. "The quick momentum we have around the ODP is already taking the guesswork out of fragmented and duplicative processes of what works and what doesn't. This will enable enterprises and ecosystem vendors to focus on integrating and building business-driven applications and use cases that drive innovation."